வெள்ளி, 29 ஆகஸ்ட், 2014

STF deployed to muzzle protests against environmental genocide in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 August 2014, 07:01 GMT]Hundreds of commandos from the occupying Special Task Force (STF), a
full-fledged military outfit under the SL Police that has committed
genocidal massacres against Eezham Tamils in the East, have been
deployed in Vadamaraadchi East in Jaffna to muzzle renewed protests from
Tamil villagers against the environment-destroying sand-scooping that
is being carried out by Colombo-backed EPDP paramilitary's Maheswary
Foundation and Gotabhaya-operated ‘Neythal’ outfit. On Thursday, a
25-year-old pregnant woman was killed on the spot when a speeding
vehicle belonging to Maheswary Foundation hit her on Saraswathy Lane at
Navakkiri in Valikaamam East.

Vehicle involved in sand scooping burnt down by Puththoor villagers
after the speeding vehicle hit a 25-year-old pregnant woman killing her
on the spot on Thursday.

The angered villagers who witnessed
the brutal incident chased the vehicle and burnt it completely down.
The incident took place around 10:45 a.m. on Thursday

The slain victim was identified as Kavinthiran Subajini.

SL
Police officials, who arrived at the site with SL military backing,
were harassing the villagers. A senior police superintendent, who
arrived at Navakkiri Thursday evening wanted to jail the relatives of
the slain victims. However, no one has been arrested, according to the
police on Friday.

At a press conference held in Jaffna on
Friday, the SL police was not able to respond to questions whether the
said vehicle was on its third trip after scooping sand. The vehicle only
had a one-trip pass, according to an informed reporter. The police said
they had no records as everything had been burnt down.

Talking
of ‘Economic Development’ and ‘Collaborative Politics’, the SL minister
and former paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda, has been exploiting
the sand dunes, running a multi million rupee business through Maheswary
Foundation.

Having
obtained 'legal permits' from the genocidal State of Sri Lanka, the
paramilitary outfit has been making large sums of money by illegal
scooping many times above the allowed limits.

Realizing the
economic potential behind the exploitation amidst the escalating demand
for building material, the Sri Lankan Presidential sibling and Defence
Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa also entered the business through a murky
outfit named as ‘Neythal’. SL military personnel are deployed as workers
by Neythal, people from Maalu Junction at Karaveddi on Jaffna – Point
Pedro Road, say.

It is under these circumstances, the genocidal
State of Sri Lanka has deployed the notorious commandos of the Brtish
trained STF in Vadamaraadchi East.

The indiscriminate excavation of sand has caused seepage of sea water into the villages in Vadamaraadchi East.

The
stretch of sand dunes in Vadamaraadchi, that links the Jaffna peninsula
with the Vanni mainland, is a unique geographical feature. The sands are
actually carried by long shore drift from the Indian subcontinent to
Jaffna and are deposited by the Northeast winds.

Tamil civil
groups and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) politicians have exhausted all
legal avenues available under the SL State system in their effort to put
an end to the environmental genocide.

After the genocidal
onslaught in May 2009, Colombo has been stepping up the deployment of
the notorious STF commandos in all the districts in the Northern and
Eastern provinces.

There are more than 8,000 STF personnel
attached to 69 camps, most of them situated in the occupied country of
Eezham Tamils in the North and East of the island.

Corporate
Watch, a non-profit research group in UK, has in recent times exposed
the training provided to more than 3,500 Sri Lankan ‘policemen’
including the STF commandos and senior commanders. The British assistance to STF was being provided while the outfit was directly engaged in acts of genocide in the East as well as in Vanni.

Modi gave lesson to TNA on ‘collaborative politics’ says Devananda

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 August 2014, 23:11 GMT]“I hope that the Tamil National Alliance leaders who recently went to
meet the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would listen to his
advice, which is the same as our longstanding position on the resolution
to the conflict, that one should start collaborating with the Sri
Lankan Government on Northern Provincial Council,” said EPDP leader
Douglas Devananda, who is also a minister in Rajapaksa regime. He was
addressing the audience at the re-opening ceremony of Achchuveali
Industrial Estate in Jaffna on Wednesday. The industrial estate has
been rehabilitated with Indian assistance. SL Presidential sibling and
the ‘Economic Development’ Minister Basil Rajapaksa, High Commissioner
of India Y.K. Sinha and the Chief Minister of Northern Province C.V.
Wigneswaran were among the delegates who attended three ceremonial
events connected to projects that have received Indian assistance.

“We will be fully prepared to welcome the TNA leadership on board if it
adhered to the advice of the Indian PM,” the EPDP paramilitary leader
said at Achchuveali, adding that he has been promoting I’nakka Arasiyal
(collaborative politics) for decades. He was advocating participation in
Mahinda Rajapaksa’s All Party Committee (APC) process.

SL
Minister Basil Rajapaksa was also harping on the ‘benefits’ of
‘collaborative politics’ in his address. A political solution is only
possible through collaborating with SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
There is no use in going to the international community, he said.

Basil
Rajapaksa was further claiming that the projects carried out with
Indian assistance were made possible by the ‘efforts’ of the SL
government in Colombo.

India had provided 175 million rupees for
the rehabilitation of Achchuveali Industrial Estate. The SL Government
has given only 25 million rupees.

The visiting delegates also
took part in two other ceremonial events connected to projects receiving
Indian assistance: the rehabilitation of Thuraiappa Stadium and the
construction of a base hospital at Poonakari.

In the meantime,
the acting Consul General of India S.D. Moorthy from the Consulate
General Of India in Jaffna was subjected to security check and
harassment by the Sri Lankan officials earlier on the day when he went
to receive the High Commissioner of India, Y.K. Sinha, who came from
Colombo to take part in the ceremonial events.

The officers of
the occupying SL military, who were at Thuraiappa Stadium to receive the
SL presidential sibling and ‘Economic Development’ Minister Basil
Rajapaksa, had forced the Indian Consul General Mr Moorthy to undergo
security check violating the diplomatic procedure, according to sources
close to the Consulate General of India.

Sinhala-Military show in Nalloor alienates Tamils in religion

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 August 2014, 06:40 GMT]An astonishing number of Sinhala Army soldiers in traditional Tamil
devotional dress were paraded on the last day of Nalloor temple festival
in Jaffna, in a newly found ‘devotion’. The show aimed at subtly
ridiculing Eezham Tamils of their religion, intimidating them
psychologically and sending them a message that the occupying Sinhala
military would even take away the religion from them, news sources in
Jaffna said on Wednesday. In various numbers, the Sinhala military has
been occupying Jaffna for several decades. But, the newly discovered
‘devotion’ for Murukan has become another weapon of structural genocide
to go along with the thousands of houses that are now being built for
the occupying Sinhala military personnel and their families, the sources
further said.

The
Tamil Saivite Murukan temple at Kathirkaamam in the South was captured
by the Sinhala-Buddhists over the decades by show of number and
intimidation.

They attempt doing this to the Tamil Catholic church at Madu in Mannaar too.

It
has now started taking place in Nalloor with the show of the occupying
military, commented Tamil devotees who avoided visiting the temple on
the festival day.

The genocidal State of Sri Lanka would project
the whole show as ‘reconciliation’ and there is a New Delhi and
Washington that patronize this military to play second fiddle to the
claim, the devotees commented further.

Thousands of Sinhala
soldiers belonging to the 51 and 52 divisions of the occupying SLA were
brought in vehicles and made to walk in a 4 member row. Some of them
also carried decorated Kaavadies.

More than 40,000 Sri Lankan
soldiers are occupying the Jaffna peninsula alone, according to Tamil
sources. The SL State is waging a false propaganda that it has reduced
the figure to 18,000.

In the meantime, the SL military is
hurriedly constructing thousands of clustered houses inside the Sinhala
Military Zone (SMZ) in Valikaamam North permanently seizing the lands
from Eezham Tamils who have been uprooted from their houses, fertile
agricultural lands and rich fishing beds in their coast, that were
occupied and demarcated earlier as ‘High Security Zone’.

Informed
sources told TamilNet this week that around 8,000 clustered-houses have
been completed within the SMS. Arrangements are also under way to
construct more 7,000 houses. 15,000 families of the occupying SL
soldiers are to be settled inside the SMZ creating a township. Plans are
afoot to construct schools and other infrastructural installations, the
sources further said.

A recent study of Satellite imagery
undertaken by the Washington-based Geospatial Technologies and Human
Rights and Law Program of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science (AAAS) at the request of the ‘Sri Lanka Campaign’ advocacy
group, has also verified the new ‘residential type’ structures being
built inside the Sinhala Military Zone. ‘The most obvious change was a
dramatic increase in housing-style structures, particularly between 2011
and 2014,” noted the report issued by the AAAS earlier this month. The
report has also documented cultivation and other institutional changes
being made inside 18 identified installations in the military zone.

Muslims protest against land grab in Pulmoaddai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 August 2014, 22:04 GMT]Tamil-speaking residents of Arisi-moaddai in Pulmoaddai situated in
the north of Trincomalee district confronted the occupying Sri Lankan
Police on Tuesday blocking the surveying of lands that are being taken
over for the construction of a Buddhist vihara. A 54-year-old civilian,
Abubakkar has been admitted at hospital with injuries, news sources in
Pulmoaddai said. Stating that 500 acres of lands were being taken over
for archaeological research, the SL State is seizing lands from Muslims
in Pulmoaddai for the construction of a Buddhist site.

Around 600 people, most of them Muslims from three villages protested against the land grab.

A similar attempt to survey lands was also blocked by the residents 10 days ago.

‘Hindutva’ needs edification from South

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 August 2014, 09:00 GMT]The New Delhi Establishment has to be made to realise that it has
touched a wrong nerve on the national question of Eezham Tamils, in the
name of its ‘national interests’. If the BJP’s stand is going to be the
‘majority State’ formula in India and in upholding genocidal Sri Lanka,
the boundaries of both created by the British whom the BJP condemns
otherwise, it is time for the peoples of India to prove who is the real
majority and who has the real people’s power– whether the power-centric
mobilisation harping on ‘Hindutva’ or others. If the Tamils, Muslims,
Christians, Sikhs, Lingayats (Veera Saivas), Dalits, Tribals and peoples
of Northeast States join together, the picture would be totally
different.

It should be carefully understood that the present ‘Hindutva’ set up in
New Delhi is one that doesn’t even spare the name of Vivekananada in its
international imperialistic exercises. The present National Security
Advisor at New Delhi was running Vevekananda International Foundation
for ten years.

This ‘Hindutva’ of
corporate-militarist-imperialist perspective is now deployed with its
theoretical justifications of so-called ‘national interest’ in joining
hands with the genocidal Sinhala-Buddhist State and in continuing the
genocide of Eezham Tamils in the immediate neighbourhood, disregarding
all obvious logic of geopolitics and norms of humanity.

While it
is said that local bias and paranoia of sectarian but influential
individuals in the south of India long contributed to the policy in New
Delhi including ‘Hindutva’, the edification of the current brand of
‘Hindutva’ should never be approached as anti-Brahmin.

The cock
and bull stories of Rama and Ravana said by the Harvard-educated,
‘Hindutva’ stalwart Subramanian Swamy at a venue such as a ‘defence
conference’ in Colombo would tell the current quality of ‘Hindutva’. One
should have seen the way Colombo’s genocidal military commanders were
amusing at his talk.

But the lingering counter-products of the
anti-Brahmin outbursts of the Dravidian movement during the last century
also have to be scrutinised with a balanced sense of today’s needs in
mobilising the masses against a power group that has hijacked religion
for the monopoly of one sixth of humanity and for genocidal imperialism.

It
was a Brahmin-born doyen of modern Kannada literature, Professor U. R.
Ananthamurthy, who passed away on Friday, had said in April that he
would not live in India if Modi were to be elected as Prime Minister.
His famous novel Samskara is available in Tamil, for global Tamils to
get an idea on the realm of social forces outside of Tamil Nadu that
could be mobilised in the edification of ‘Hindutva’.

When the
north of India lost bearing in religion, it was a Kerala-born Sankara,
Tamil-Nadu-born Ramanuja and Karnataka-born Madhva, who rejuvenated the
philosophical foundations of today’s ‘Vedic Hinduism’.

More than
that, it was the Bhakthi movement of Tamils that started in the 5th
century CE that liberated religion for every walk of people. A
Nanthanaar of the Pa’raiyar community became a saint to be worshiped by
the Brahmins.

Whether it is the Lingayat Saivism that has
rejected Brahmanism and is followed by the majority of the people in
Karnataka and by considerable number of people in Andhra, Telengana and
Maharashtra; the Puri Jagannath tradition of Odisha; the Chaithanya
school of Bengal; the Radha Swamy sect of Gujarat or the Meera tradition
in the north – they all are based on Bhakthi of the common folk and
were historically inspired by Tamil Saivism and Vaishnavism.

If
the BJP and its allies the Shiv Sena and the RSS are now going to come
out with a ‘Hindutva’ for majoritarianism in religion, which doesn’t
actually exist; if this ‘Hindutva’ is going to be deployed for
socio-political-cultural-linguistic monopoly and for
corporate-militarist-imperialist purposes, and if this could go to the
extent of not shunning genocide, then it is high time the South,
especially Tamil Nadu should step in, leading the edification of it, or
if edification is not possible doing away with it.

Tamils have a
long history of going through all the major religions of the world and
also rebelling against religions whenever it was necessary. The
century-old experience of the Dravidian movement in the matter of
religion should now be used in a positive way, incorporating all
sections of Tamils and reaching out the rest of India.

If the
stateless and military-less Tamils, collectively penalised by
imperialist aspirations, could have a foreign policy in struggling
against genocide and imperialism, it begins from a social foreign policy
of Tamils inside and outside of India.

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 August 2014, 22:01 GMT]Tamils from UK gathered at Downing Street, London on Saturday to
remember the Chegn-choalai (Sencholai) massacre and to condemn the
ongoing genocidal sex abuse of Eezham Tamil women in the Tamil homeland
by the occupying Sinhala forces. The protesters, most of whom were youth
activists, held placards and banners stating that "Sri Lanka's LLRC
report is a blueprint for genocide of Eelam Tamil nation" and demanding
the UN to investigate genocide and conduct referendum for Tamil Eelam.

Four
Kfir jet bombers of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) dropped 16 bombs on
the premises of the Chegn-choalai children’s home in Vallipunam on
Paranthan-Mullaiththeevu road.

The activists at the protest at
Downing Street on Saturday observed that the failure of international
community to recognize the clear genocidal intent of Sri Lanka in this
act, emboldened it to continue with greater ferocity in later attacks.

TNPF leader speaks on independent, concerted, Tamil foreign policy

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 August 2014, 02:32 GMT]Realising that our struggle has long been used by powers in their
engagements with the island, we as a nation must work towards a
concerted foreign policy, although we don’t have State, said Tamil
National People’s Front (TNPF) leader Mr. Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam in
an interview to TamilNet on Saturday. In meeting the challenge of
achieving this, we should incorporate Tamil Nadu in creating a power
centre in a geopolitical sense and the dynamics will change very
quickly. Compared to the Congress, the BJP is little bit more blunt and
more strident in containing the nationalist nature of the struggle. This
is the carrot to the Sri Lankan State and the TNA is a co-partner. The
TNPF leader argued for a breakthrough by addressing the situation in
three ways.

“The reality is that we have States
and those interests of States that are severely run by militaristic
logic,” Gajendrakumar said and argued that this has to be addressed
through a Tamil foreign policy including Tamil Nadu and coming out with a
geopolitical equation.

“There is no ‘one international community’, we recognize that,” he said.

With
regard to non-State entities, which is the real international
community, and which is the populations not structured, Gajendrakumar
said that we have an advantage through the pressure exerted on Sri Lanka
particularly by the Western governments and by the resulting awareness.
With the general international community, we can move forward by the
presence of the diaspora, if we have a coordinated foreign policy, he
said.

Thirdly, with regards to unrecognized informal nations,
Tamil Nadu is the foremost, Gajendrakumar said, urging coordination at
the level of Tamil Nadu government and at the level of people to make
the breakthrough.

* * *

Full text of Mr Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam’s interview follows:

TamilNet: What are the current needs that the nation of Eezham Tamils should have an independent foreign policy?

Ponnambalam:
If you look at what is happening internationally and the way various
international actors are reacting to Sri Lanka in general and the Tamil
national struggle in particular, what you will find is that when
countries deal with Sri Lanka, the Tamil national question plays a
central role. If you take the UN Human Rights Council, whatever action
is being contemplated with regards to Sri Lanka has the Tamil question
and the suffering of the Tamil people as the key element in order to
justify those steps.

If you take relations with regards to
India-Sri Lanka, you will find that at various points, right through the
history ever since the British left Sri Lanka, India has always used
the Tamil national question as leverage when dealing with the Sri Lankan
state. At times, they have used the Tamil national question to put
severe pressure on the Sri Lankan governments. And at times they have
done the complete opposite. They have appeased the Sri Lankan
governments by completely containing, if not in fact acting to the
severe detriment of the Tamil national question and the Tamil national
struggle. So that is the reality.

The Tamil nation and the Tamil
people’s struggle for liberty, equality and self-determination, in
particular has been essentially used as a tool and it continues to be
used as a tool even as we speak. So as far as we are concerned when
foreign countries and their policies to Sri Lanka have used the Tamil
question as leverage and as a tool, it only shows the importance of the
Tamil question with regards to these actors.

And unfortunately,
where the Tamil people have failed, we failed to understand the
importance of the Tamil nation and the Tamil homeland in a geopolitical
sense. And in a larger sense, the Tamil polity which includes Tamil Nadu
in a geopolitical sense. We have failed to realize the importance of
this region and the role that we play in this region. As a result, we
are impotent in dealing with these major power struggles and
geopolitical struggles that are taking place. Quite contrarily, we are
simply being used.

So it is our party’s position, and it has
been that position for a long time, that we must work towards a
concerted foreign policy as a nation although we don’t have a state, we
must have a policy of our own. And it is only if we have a policy of our
own when dealing with the international community and its various
actors – there is no ‘one international community’, we recognize that –
can we actually further our own struggle for justice.

* * *

TamilNet: Given the circumstances of dispersed Eezham Tamils, what are the prospects of achieving a concerted foreign policy?

Ponnambalam:
It is a very crucial question. The fact that the Eezham Tamil nation
today is dispersed right throughout the world, obviously we are
physically present in our homeland, but there is a considerable diaspora
which can play a key role, that is spread throughout the western world.

There is a small number of Eezham Tamils who are living in
India, in South India in particular, in Tamil Nadu, and it is these
various groupings that comprise the Eezham Tamil nation. The challenge
is whether we can actually come up with an independent foreign policy of
our own as a nation considering these factors.

Why it might be a
challenge – and I use the term ‘challenge’ deliberately – is when you
are physically situated in various different parts and your
circumstances are different, you might have an emotional attachment to
the Eezham Tamil nation and the homeland. But your needs, your interests
obviously might be different, when you are physically situated in
various other countries. There can be, in those circumstances, conflict
of interest.

But I think if we look at our interests as a whole,
and also if we look at it in an unemotional way, my belief is that we
can find a common ground. And we can find a common ground if we also go
beyond looking at a Eezham Tamil foreign policy, but also incorporate
Tamil Nadu into this equation, then the dynamics will change very
quickly because there is a substantial power-centre that we can create
in a geo-political sense. That will give an impetus for these scattered
interests to come together in a concerted way.

* * *

TamilNet:
What could be the role of the people and Government of Tamil Nadu in
contributing to a foreign policy conducive to the struggle of Eezham
Tamils?

Ponnambalam: Tamil
Nadu is key. As far as our party is concerned, geopolitically we look
at Tamil Nadu as even far more important than the island of Sri Lanka in
a global sense. Tamil Nadu’s population is that much bigger. It has
physical and geographical contiguity with the continent, and it strikes
the same physical presence with regards to the Indian Ocean. So all the
importance in a geopolitical sense that comes to the island of Sri
Lanka, Tamil Nadu has a much bigger importance, in that it has a
physical contiguity with the continent and has a much larger population.

So the sort of impact, if this little island called Sri Lanka
in its present state can play such a dominant role when it comes to
major powers, on just imagine if Tamil Nadu chooses to use its
geopolitical importance what a tremendous impact it would have in a
global sense.

And this is where we believe that if Tamil Nadu
does live up to its potential in formulating a foreign policy, then
obviously that policy will have very strong leanings and will
incorporate the Eezham Tamil presence in our own struggle, I think we
will be in a position to make a substantial difference.

* * *

TamilNet:
Unlike the Congress regime, the BJP regime of today is very explicit in
declaring a foreign policy formula that places India’s national
interests and expectations of Eezham Tamils at loggerheads. The Eezham
Tamil experience is that the Indo-US competition over the island always
kept them at the receiving end. Considering New Delhi’s declared stand
and unfolding global scenario, what could be the foreign policy options
of the nation of Eezham Tamils?

Ponnambalam:
With regards to the Congress and BJP, our party, even before the new
government in India came into power, has said that the foreign policy
element with regard to Sri Lanka in general and the Eezham Tamil nation
in particular is not going to change.

What you are seeing today
is the Congress government was a little bit more subtle and
sophisticated in its rhetoric and the way it took certain positions. But
the BJP is a little bit more blunt and a little bit more strident. Much
like what you have in the United States, where you have the Democrats
under President Obama and the previous Republican government under
George W Bush, you’ll find that in the nuances they are different, but
by and large, the policy hasn’t substantially changed. Its in the way it
has been packaged, but the substance hasn’t changed.

So we
believe that for as long as we don’t have a policy of our own, and as
for long as we are not seen to be serious about what we stand for, we
will simply be used as tools. Today what is happening, as far as India
is concerned, India is simply on an appeasement mode to the Sri Lankan
state. They are using the Tamil issue and India’s ability in a post-LTTE
scenario, to completely contain if not completely stifle the Tamil
nationalist movement and the Tamil nationalist struggle to a point that
it will become non-nationalist in nature. Where it dissipates to point
where Tamil politics is ripped of nationalism and the policies that the
Tamil people have stood for over the past 65 years.

So that is
the carrot that is being dangled in front of the Sri Lankan state. And
the co-partners in the appeasement policy of Sri Lanka are the current
elected representatives of the TNA who blindly accept whatever position
or whatever diktat New Delhi gives to them. In that scenario, obviously
as elected representatives if they are prepared to go down that path,
the prospects of having a foreign policy and an independent policy of
our own being a stand and actually being to negotiate, becomes
negligible if not zero. That is the problem that we see today.

So
unless our people begin to realize that if don’t take a stand if we
don’t get our act together soon, because there is a moment right now for
us, I believe that we will simply be used and discarded. Like in the
80s how we were used when India wanted to put pressure on the Sri Lankan
government when it was trying to contain the United States’ influence
in Sri Lanka. Through the Indo-Lanka accord being signed, the purpose of
the Tamil pressure point ceased to exist and the Tamils were asked to
forget about everything they had fought for and struggled for. Of
course, there was one organization that refused to do that. So that
organization had to be got rid of. And that has been done.

Now
since you have a pliable Tamil leadership in the form of the TNA, that
position continues. Unless we realize this is what is happening and that
we need to make a complete change and a complete break from this trend
and have a policy of our own, we will be seeing more and more of what we
have seen for the last five years.

* * *

TamilNet:
What could be the foreign policy models that could go beyond States and
militaries, in achieving the expectations of the nation of Eezham
Tamils that doesn’t have State or military?

Ponnambalam:
As to what foreign policy option the Eezham Tamil nation has, I would
like to look at it in different sort of frame. The reality is that we
have states and those interests of states that are severely run by
militaristic logic. Then there is also the non-state element, which is
the real international community which is the general population, and
then there is a much more informal international community that is not
state structured but certainly lives in unrecognized nations that are
struggling.

My belief is that we can have a
concerted, coordinated foreign policy to deal with all these three
scenarios. With regards to the first, which is the formal state
structure that exists, I think that the first part of this interview
dominated with regard to dealing with that element.

With regard
to the general international community which is the populations not
structured, the people so to speak, I think we have an advantage because
there has been this need to try and put pressure on Sri Lanka
particularly by Western governments to use the last stages of the war
and the tremendous crimes that were committed against the people, the
genocide that was committed against the Tamil people, to be used as
leverage and pressure points.

We have a head start because that
in itself has created awareness with regards to what has actually been
happening to the Tamil people. So much so that you have general people
living in countries like Australia questioning their own government’s
policies with regards to Tamil asylum seekers. So that advantage has
already been created. We need to capitalize on that awareness. Once
again, if we have a coordinated foreign policy, particularly with the
presence of the diaspora in most of the Western countries, and with the
Western media that tends to dominate, our view is that we can move
forward in that sense as well.

The third, with regards to
unrecognized, informal nations our view is that we prioritize Tamil Nadu
as foremost. If Tamil Nadu and the Eezham Tamil nation can cooperate
into forming a common position, I believe that the geopolitical weight
that can be brought about will create substantial changes. As I said
right at the beginning, Tamil Nadu to us is key, and it is through
working with Tamil Nadu, both at the level of the Tamil Nadu government,
but also with regards to the general population in Tamil Nadu, we
believe that we can make a breakthrough not only with our own interests
in the form of policy making to the international community, but also
with regard to the world Tamil population in general.

13-A hoodwink continues under

BJP New Delhi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 August 2014, 22:41 GMT]The 27 year-old treacherous deceit of the New Delhi Establishment,
committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils in the name of implementing the
13 Amendment of the unitary constitution of genocidal Sri Lanka,
continues under Narendra Modi’s regime, with an ultimate aim of
completing the genocide and structural genocide in the island, commented
Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island, responding to
the outcome of TNA-Modi meeting that took place in New Delhi on
Saturaday. What is privately and separately said to Rajapaksa or TNA
doesn’t count at all. What actually takes place on the ground tells what
is in the agenda, the activists further said.

“The Prime Minister stressed the need for a political solution that
addresses the aspirations of the Tamil community for equality, dignity,
justice and self respect within the framework of a united Sri Lanka. In
this context, the Prime Minister urged all stakeholders in Sri Lanka to
engage constructively, in a spirit of partnership and mutual
accommodation, towards finding a political solution that builds upon the
13th Amendment of the Sri Lankan Constitution,” a statement coming from
the Indian Prime Minister’s Office on the TNA-Modi meet said on
Wednesday.

Enough have been said and enough have taken place on
the ground in the last three decades, proving the futility and treachery
of the 13 Amendment. Engaging Eezham Tamils in the debate of 13-A
itself is a deviation tactic, the Tamil activists for alternative
politics said.

Except militarily and diplomatically buttressing
the genocidal unity of Sri Lanka, how does New Delhi serve the equality,
dignity, justice and self respect of Eezham Tamils, when it denies the
nation and self-determination of Eezham Tamils, denies the genocide and
on-going genocide, and blocks any international justice reaching Eezham
Tamils, asked the activists.

A striking feature of the statement
is that the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island has been reduced to
“Tamil community,” not even an ethnicity or a people.

Will they
tell the same to the Sinhala nation, if they uphold ‘equality’,
questioned the activists, citing BJP ‘Strategic Action Committee’
chairman, Subramanian Swamy, who this week in Colombo was harping on
‘majority Hindus’ in India and ‘majority Sinhalese’ in the island.

His
understanding of ‘ethnicity’ was not seeing even any ethnic question
but only a language question in the island. How even that language is
mutilated, and how the Sinhala nation expects anyone living in the
island to become ‘Sinhalese’ or face genocide, is not unknown to those
who pay lip service to equality but have complicity in genocide, the
activists said.

“The Prime Minister also assured the TNA
delegation of India’s continuing support for relief, rehabilitation and
reconstruction works in Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka particularly in
projects relating to housing, livelihood generation, capacity building,
education, hospitals and infrastructure,” said the second part of New
Delhi’s statement on Wednesday.

New Delhi that officially
established ‘military to military relationship’ with genocidal Sri Lanka
after the war, continuing support to the Sinhala militarisation in the
country of Eezham Tamils, resulting in large-scale land appropriations,
Sinhala military cantonments, new Sinhala colonies and townships and
demographic genocide in an unprecedented scale, are what actually seen
on the ground, making ‘relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction’ a
joke, the Tamil activists responded.

Sinhalicisation and
militarisation of Trincomalee city and a new Sinhala military city in
the making at Palaali in Jaffna should be best known to the TNA
delegation and particularly to the delegation leader Mr. R. Sampanthan,
more than anybody else.

What is happening on the ground in Jaffna
and Trincomalee is a world war scale Sinhala militarisation. What
interest of New Delhi backs it at the cost of the genocide and
annihilation of the nation and country of Eezham Tamils is the practical
question.

Even after seeing what is happening on the ground
Tamil polity in general, whether in the island, in Tamil Nadu or in the
diaspora, cannot anymore harp on the deceptive assurances of the New
Delhi Establishment. Tamil diplomacy has to seek new avenues and
strategies in directly addressing the various peoples of India on one
hand and the real international community on the other, the Tamil
activists for alternative politics said.

Australian author Trevor Grant documents genocide of Eezham Tamils in new book

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 August 2014, 21:36 GMT]While there is a general climate of silence in the Western
establishments to recognize the oppression of the Eezham Tamil nation by
the unitary Sri Lankan state as genocide, Australian writer and veteran
journalist Trevor Grant is perspicuously unsparing in criticizing these
establishments for their silence and complicity in the genocide. In his
recently released book “Sri Lanka’s Secrets: How The Rajapaksa Regime
Gets Away With Murder”, Mr. Grant besides documenting the various forms
in which genocide is being perpetrated by the Sri Lankan state on the
Tamils, also blasts the world establishments for their hand in this
crime. Speaking to TamilNet, Mr. Grant said “This book condemns not only
this latest potent strain of Sinhalese chauvinism in power in Colombo
but also those in the halls of power in Canberra, Westminster,
Washington and Delhi who give the green light to the genocide.”

“Sri Lanka’s Secrets” is published
by Monash University Publishing with a foreword by eminent human rights
lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC.

Grant said that the motivation to
write this book came out of life stories that he kept hearing from Tamil
asylum-seekers in Australia.

“I work closely with these people
as a convenor with the Tamil Refugee Council, helping torture victims,
presenting the Tamil Manifest show on Melbourne radio 3CR and driving a
van to deliver clothing, food and furniture to those struggling to exist
under Australia's heartless refugee policy. In my travels I heard
horrendous tales about the precarious existence for Tamils in their
traditional homeland, before, during and after the war,” he said.

“I
have been a journalist in the mainstream Australian media for 45 years.
I know how to decipher fact from fiction. It was soon obvious to me
that there was nothing false about these stories. They were real,
alright, and, soon enough, I also discovered the extent of the evil
complicity that had allowed a brutal regime to slaughter tens of
thousands of innocent people and then carry on with its' genocidal plan,
without so much as a UN Security Council censure.”

“It made be
ashamed of my country, knowing that after wiping out the bulk of its'
indigenous population, it is complicit in another genocide,” he added.

While
various human rights groups in the west are content with only counting
the trees with respect to the island, Grant minces no words in calling a
spade a spade.

‘Sri Lanka’s Secrets’, which is illustrated with
graphic photos of the war and its aftermath, has poignant eye-witness
accounts of survivors who experienced the war, torture and rape
first-hand.

However, the book is not a tale of suffering devoid
of political content because the author contextualizes the local and
international scenario in which these atrocities happened.

Grant
recognizes that the brutalities meted out to the Tamils are not just
about the Rajapaksa regime but that the current president is “simply the
most successful at it, in a long line of Sinhalese rulers whose desire
to contain and destroy the Tamil identity and culture has known no
bounds.”

The author notes how foreign powers tilted the balance
in favour of the Sri Lankan government. He also exposes in detail the
level of complicity that Australia has in legitimizing Sri Lanka,
elaborating on Australia’s cruel treatment of Tamil asylum seekers.

He
explains that “the Australian Government has been party to giving a nod
and a wink to the Sri Lankan government to continue its persecution of
Tamils and, thus, has contributed to the flight of asylum seekers they
are trying to stop.”

The author also criticizes the inaction of
the UN during the war and after for being responsible for the genocidal
atrocities committed on the Tamils, condemning it for “callous
indifference and abject incompetence.”

Despite elaborate
accounts of the horrific crimes endured by Tamil survivors, Grant’s book
is not defeatist as its conclusion shows.

“There is always one
thing that despots forget as they go about their business of murder and
terror. You can kill thousands of people, but you can never kill the
human spirit.”